IC Timeline: Within the days following Life Choices.
A wind blew from the east, carrying with it the sound of steady drums and the voices of their neighbors. She could hear them singing, laughing, cheering, and she could see the burning oranges and yellows illuminating the darkness that would have engulfed them if not for it. Only the baboons could catch the wood aflame and properly stoke the fires. Maybe her pride should befriend them too?
Beneath her paws the lake waters mirrored every detail of her face, lined with enough indignation to contrast the gaiety of her siblings. They'd tried to wrangle her into attending with them; nothing but exasperation on both ends had come of it. "Better to hold our breath than waste it," she'd heard Winza murmur to their brother.
At least her waterbound likeliness wasn't querulous. "What do they know?" she curtly asked of her reflection. "They don't have a responsibility in the world."
But there were worse things to be born than a future queen, let alone reborn. The pride's eldest had informed her she was a slave in the life before this, toiling days away, no matter how inclement the weather. On behalf of gratitude, Talis vowed to never resent her birthright or her birthplace, just as Winza swore he'd never take a mate and Yafeu had assured them he'd practice his singing. They'd all done a lot of vowing in their adulthood, but her most of all. None of them outshined the others in terms of fulfilling them, though. Yafeu's off-key voice bellowing over the flower field was proof enough to that, and if Talis listened closely, she could dissever the laughter of Winza and his favored female from the rest.
"Stay low," Chyou said. "They'll hear you."
Who will hear me? Talis wondered
"Stay low," Chyou repeated. "They'll hear you."
Talis' legs were weak as the wafting gold strands of the tall grass she crouched in. They'd left early and made good time; the sun was still rising. Not far from where they hunkered down their prey was languidly grazing.
"The wind's in our favor today," Chyou said gleefully. "You're small for an adolescent and there's only two of us against an entire herd, so remember to play it safe. Wildebeest will fight for their own. I'll try and chase them that way and you pounce one of the slowest before the others have time to realize."
"She's not ready," Alake said again.
Talis turned to her, looking up to better see her face. The princess squinted her eyes against the high-hung sun and wondered why it must be hot as these lionesses' tempers today of all days. Lakisa advised it was time she learned to hunt, but Alake inveighed against the idea just as staunchly as Lakisa insisted it.
"She's barely out of cubhood," Alake said.
When Talis looked down, her tiny paws were pressed in the middle of a much larger print left by their patron Goddess. That's right... She'd been playing a game. She bounded forward, jumping from one indent to the next, until finally the trail ended and she waddled through the curtain of vines and into the night. Someone was waiting for her.
"How many cubs will there be?" Talis asked, sitting beside them. Sen had started to grey around the muzzle and her visits had been less frequent as of late. Truthfully, Talis didn't much like her, but her mother wouldn't hear of it, no matter how many litters she foist on them.
"Aren't you too young to be asking these things?"
"I'm almost full-grown."
The moon was the brightest it had ever been. "Always six," Sen said, then she swatted a rock into the lake in front of them. "I have the names lined up. The first female will be Niu and the first male will be Ahlsen."
"Talis! Talis!" Alake hadn't been born into the late queen Waseme's pride, but she'd served there most of her life. Some disparaged both the princess and her mother as betrayers, cowards who abandoned them and angered the spirits and the very land of the pride, spurring plague and floods, leaving them sick and drowned. She held to these notions same as them, yet finding her former princess writhing violently in the roguelands was too gruesome a sight to meander past out of spite. "What's wrong with her?"
"She's a seer," Chyou said. She'd positioned herself at Talis' other side. Her eyes darted across the convulsing lioness while her mind raced just as frantically. The most horrific thing of all was knowing nothing could be done. Patience was their only ally. "Didn't you know?"
Alake teetered on her paws. It all rushed back to her — the princess nowhere to be found for her history lessons, tardy for her hunting lessons, and then gone all together. How had she not found that faraway look in Talis' eyes suspect to more than daydreaming? And her nightmares... Had they been visions all along?
Chyou called to her and no longer was she lost to her guilt-laden reverie. "Alake!"
She turned to Talis. "What should we do?" When the princess coughed, the saliva came out bloody. "She's bitten her tongue!"
"It's not deep," Chyou told her. "It's all right."
Alake nodded. Chyou knew about Talis being a seer, so maybe she knew about this too. She didn't have her wits about her enough to note the other lioness looked just as frazzled and that her voice was quavering.
"When the visions stop, we'll take her back with us." When, not if. Chyou always was an optimist.
The flashes of past, present, future tapered off slowly, leaving the princess drawn in on herself and whimpering about fires, wildebeest, and babbling nonsense words neither of her saviors could translate into a coherent tongue. Carrying her was a task Chyou assigned herself, citing Alake as too old. Though she worded it more eloquently, they both knew the reason.
Neither of them had a den to call their own any longer. The lush grasses by the watering hole would have to suffice.
"I'll stay with her," Chyou said. "Find Kabiro — and hurry."
